indifferent. Neither good nor bad

By Jeff Mingay

Throughout golf’s rich history, there’s been plenty of discussion and debate about which are the world’s best holes. Generally, the most admired holes around the globe are ultimately challenging, and in the best of circumstances, amazingly beautiful too.

Over the years, a few pundits – including the late British golf writer Pat Ward-Thomas in the first edition of the World Atlas of Golf (1976) – have selected their favorite holes and strung them together to make a fictitious layout intended to represent the ideal course.

Such an exercise makes for interesting reading, valuable discussion and healthy debate, but who, as Tom Simpson and H. N. Wethered ask in their classic 1927 book The Architectural Side of Golf, would actually care to play over such a course?

“The strain of it all!” wrote Simpson and Wethered. “Eighteen tee shots of the same intensity or eighteen approaches which courted disaster in the same dire form! It would to a certainty break our hearts and leave us nervous wrecks of golf lunatics in real earnest!”

Indeed. The game of golf is inherently difficult enough. Golfers should ideally be provided opportunity “to ease the tension at occasional intervals”, as Simpson and Wethered put it. Rarely though, is the importance of an indifferent hole or two discussed.

Designer of many notable courses throughout Europe, including the spectacular links at Cruden Bay on Scotland’s east coast and the elegant Morfontaine course in suburban Paris, Simpson felt that the course a golfer likes best and an ideal layout can, and must be, two entirely separate things. In other words, golfers may admire the ideal but few would actually enjoy a regular game over a course lacking what he describes as “a welcome excuse for a light-hearted effort to which we may look forward to”.

A somewhat outlandish personality, who often dressed in an embroidered cloak and beret, Simpson argued that a course without a couple of indifferent holes is in fact less than ideal. In The Architectural Side of Golf, he actually claims to have made special effort to include a few such holes – and even an “amusingly bad” one – per course. 

Simpson’s eccentric philosophy is at odds with the aims of a legion of contemporary golf course designers who, armed with money and modern machinery, sell their services on an ability to create eighteen “signature” holes per course. A few of the same men contend that had Simpson and his contemporaries during the pre-World War II era been able to move dirt as efficiently and economically as today, they would have done the same to eliminate those particular holes that may be describe as comparatively indifferent.

Curiously, Simpson’s writing suggests otherwise: “The educated taste admires simplicity of design and sound workmanship for their own sake, rather than over-decoration and the crowding of artificial hazards.”

Simpson and his most talented contemporaries simply allowed the inherent landscape to drive design. More simply, outstanding holes typically occupy outstanding terrain. Others, of the comparatively indifferent variety, play over comparatively indifferent ground. Sequencing holes to visit opposing sections of a property at varying intervals creates ideal ebb and flow throughout a round. 

There are, too, some very interesting holes throughout the world that present little appeal at first glance but come with an interesting twist. Take the tenth at Simpson’s beloved St. Andrews for example: a seemingly indifferent, relatively unattractive hole that can literally be played tee-to-green with a putter. None other than Dr. Alister MacKenzie, consultant to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club during the 1920s, originally misjudged the tenth prior to further study of the Old Course and its subtle intricacies.

“At one time, I thought the tenth was weak,” wrote The Good Doctor in his famous manuscript, The Spirit of St. Andrews. “It is of poor length (310 yards), there is no bunker of any meaning, and a width of over 100 yards to drive into.”

“Nevertheless, to have a good chance of a three not only the second but the first shot as well must be placed with the greatest of accuracy. In front of the green is a high bank sloping down towards and beyond the usual position of the pin on medal days.”             

“A pitch shot played from the position of a straight drive is stopped by the bank and runs far beyond the hole. On the right of this bank, however, there is a V-shaped valley running toward the hole, so that if the drive is placed opposite this valley it enables a player to run up his second shot near the pin.”   

As interesting as Dr. MacKenzie makes the Old Course’s tenth hole out to be, how many modern-day golf architects – with money, machinery and plenty of ideas at their disposal – would actually show the restraint required to design such a seemingly indifferent hole?

The golf course design business is extremely competitive these days. Golfers may only visit a new high-end (read: expensive) daily fee or resort course once. In such a circumstance, there’s no time to figure out the subtle intricacies of a seemingly indifferent hole, which could be perceived by a prospective client inspecting a candidate architect’s work for the first and only time as sheer incompetence. In turn, many modern-day designers over-decorate the landscape with artificial drama where nature is comparatively deficient.

Tom Simpson took a different approach, contending that any course with pretensions to greatness must have its imperfections. Including an indifferent hole or two. An examination of those courses long considered the world’s best qualifies his opinion. 

Frankly, indifferent holes add character and a certain charm. A couple of them per course provide essential variety, and lend markedly to the ebb and flow of an ideal round. As Simpson and Wethered point out, an indifferent hole (or two) also provides some needed relief at occasional intervals. And, perhaps most important, indifferent holes accentuate our appreciation of the truly outstanding holes throughout the world. 

This article appears in Issue 9 of Golf Architecture magazine, the annual journal of the Society of Australian Golf Course Architects.